


everything you’ve ever known

by pelele



Series: a future, maybe [1]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Adopted Children, Adoption, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Babies, Backstory, Bittersweet, Dark, Dragons, Families of Choice, Family Bonding, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Gen Work, Historical Accuracy, Historical References, Holidays, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Nightmares, Obscurials (Harry Potter), Protective Newt, Protective Theseus Scamander, Racism, Remix, Self-Doubt, Siblings, Timeline What Timeline, War, Wizarding Politics, Wizarding World, Work In Progress, which isn’t so accidental
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-03-21 13:58:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13742415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pelele/pseuds/pelele
Summary: Newt realizes, with a startling, horrifying clarity, that this child is now his.웃It starts in Sudan, with a girl, and a war, and an Obscurus. Except it doesn’t.





	everything you’ve ever known

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Wishes and Gifts](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/362694) by Anonymous. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the Fantastic Beasts kinkmeme prompt:
>
>> [ _**Newt + accidental baby acquisition:** That time when Newt somehow has to take care of a human baby. I don't care whose baby it is._](https://fantasticbeasts-kinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/459.html?thread=324043#cmt324043)

_The [Obscurial] I met in Africa was eight when… she was eight when she died._

* * *

The first time Newt learned of an Obscurus, he was nothing but a slip of a fifth year, huddled on a chair in a far corner of the currently empty Hufflepuff common room. There was a heavy tome, which he should most definitely not have, on his lap and a cool glass of mint lemonade on the table beside him. It was almost summer, evident in the way his freckles had darkened and his hair lightened. Sunshine spilt into the room, made every corner of the basement burn bright goldenrod and amber and Newt had to squint to see with the intensity of the light.

He knew he wasn't supposed to be holding the book, much less reading it. It was from the Restricted Section of the library, which Newt couldn't wrap his head around. Why have these books in Hogwarts at all, kept away only by a flimsy line that isn’t even warded, if he’s not allowed to read them? But it was a terrible risk, and no one would vouch for him if he were found in possession of the book. But other professors hadn’t answered Newt’s questions, not even when he pressed on, when the whispers in the halls and common rooms between the sixth years became too loud to sleep. It was a gift, really that he hadn’t grown into himself like his grandfather Cepheus claimed, the lean, long-legged form of that came from the Blacks. Even with his copper head of curls and honeybee-yellow scarf, he managed to go unnoticed, the book hidden beneath his school robes as he snuck into the library. Not a single head had turned for the blur of black and yellow balancing too-big books in his arms.

Besides, it was almost a sin to not take it. The cover was well-worn with age and use, the leather covered in soft, oily patina and peeling in the corners. The pages were an off-yellow color, smelling of must and dust in the way only ancient books could, and the words were fading so much it was hard to read, not facilitated by the faded color of the ink. Still, the magic imbued in the books pages had kept the drawings alive and its gilded edges bright. A book like that one, hidden away so cleverly one wouldn’t notice it, which had against all odds survived the passage of time, all but beckoned to be taken.

Newt balanced the book on his knees as he flipped through pages, sneaking occasional glances at the door. His eyes fell on the explanation that sometimes, young witches and wizards suppressed their magic to escape persecution from muggles, becoming something called Obscurials. That sometimes their magic would become unstable, fighting against the barriers that pushed it down, and when it came to the point where it could no longer be restrained, the Obscurus — all that rage and fear and unrestrained power — came out.

The book bore no wizard or witch to accredit not year in which it had been created. The first page of the book was just as bare, with only one page holding what seemed to be the title:

OF THE MVGGLE CAPTVRE AND INTERROGATION OF VVITCHES AND VVIZARDS

As promised, the pages were filled with endless records of Muggle and Muggle-induced atrocities, weapons and illness and famine, the Obscurus — its named etched beneath the depiction in a shaky lettering — amongst them. Newt pushed his distaste down and traced the depiction of an Obscurial being overcome by the force inside them. The dark mass burst out of their body and circled the page, hissing at the graphic images of torture, crouching and lurking behind paragraphs, searching and hungry and not too dissimilar to his mother’s hippogriffs when she threw them meat. If he didn’t know better, he’d say the Obscurus was playful, following him across each page he flips through, peeking from beneath the twitching bodies of wizards hung in gallows and left to die at the hands of beasts, set to burn on pyres and decapitated in guillotines. The child in the drawing — it was too difficult to tell whether it was a boy or a girl, had contorted in pain — their mouth opening and twisting in silent screams. In the brief second they were still human and corporeal, their tiny hands reached out to him. The Obscurus’ glowing white eyes fixed on him, and despite it being nothing more than ink on paper, Newt thought that if he could left himself, he would drown in them.

A hand, small and thin and cold like slabs of marble, settled on Newt’s shoulder then. The sound he made was shrill and embarrassing enough to draw laughter from one of the portraits in the room that had been sleeping.

“Boy, you sound like a gutted pig!”

The woman’s voice — Newt couldn't remember who she was, though he firmly remembered from his head of house that she was a general who fought in a dozen or so wars — was warm, raspy in the way screaming can only screaming. It washed over Newt like a cool rain during a heatwave, soothing his panic and calming the shaking he didn’t know he had.

Leta, it had been her hand on him, stood there and regards him with undisguised curiosity, similar to the one she used to examine the Jarvies she kept. She looked out of place there, her small frame made even smaller by her dark robes, a black and green spot in the sunny cheer of the Hufflepuff common room. Newt was just about to snap at her for gawking owlishly at him — _do I have a billywig on my face or something_ — when he realizes her gaze is not on him, but the open book, the pages obscured by the deathly grip of his hands.

Leta leant down enough that Newt could see the delicate chain of a necklave around her neck, peering between his fingers. “What’s this about? We don’t have any History assignments. ”

“N—no. No, I just — Leta! Hey!”

”Don’t tell me you’ve snagged one of those books the girls gush about so much!”

Newt pulled the book to his chest with one hand and pushed her away with the other. Despite himself, he managed a smile at her attempts to see what he was hiding. “You’re a menace. This book is nothing.”

“Then I can see what it’s called. Or maybe I can guess?”

“ _Leta!_ ” Heat ignited the tips of Newt’s ears as Leta all but sat on his lap and tried to wrestle the book away from him.

Leta’s tone was teasing and non-judgmental, the same she used in the Quidditch pitch when he missed the quaffle by a long-shot, but Newt panicked at the thought that she’ll see the book and know. Or worse, question him about it. And the longer he was with the book, the more risk he ran of being caught. For a second his heartbeat stilled as her hands curl around the book and she made a victorious sound, before Newt curled into himself, drew his leg in and delivered a sharp, well-placed kick to her stomach and send Leta sprawling to the floor.

He slammed the book shut and tucked it away between the heavy daffodil and saffron cushions, ignoring Leta’s protests — he couldn't trust her to not tell anyone, or react calmly to the fact he broke into the Restricted Section and stole a book. Behind them, other portraits had roused from their naps and cheer on the earlier scuffle.

“Hell Newt, that hurt!” Leta stood and rubbed where Newt had kicked her, wincing when she pressed down too hard. “Alright then, keep your little secrets. But you’ll need a better hiding place than the common room.”

Newt feel5 his left eye twitch, much like his father's did when one of Theseus' pet rats had shreded his papers. He took a deep, steadying breath. Being angry with Leta never served a purpose. “I don’t have anything to hide. What are you even doing here, don’t you have Herbology right now?”

”Beery got Spattergroit.” Leta waved her hands excitedly as she talked. Newt never understood how his friend carried so much energy. “Fungus in the classroom, so Herbology is suspended until the forceeable future. Which means we have free time to raid the kitchens. Come on, I heard the elves are making those honey cakes you love.

With that, she dragged him by the scarf to the kitchens, and Newt’s thoughts of the book were forgotten in the midst of cakes and jellies, buns and candied fruits, but the image of the child lingered in the back of his mind throughout the whole day, and Leta flicked his ear, asking him more than once why he stared at the darkened corners of the kitchens.

When night fell, the two hid in one of the many hideouts Newt had made in the turrets, bellies full with sweets and tired from having chased around the house elves, listening to the muffled laughter and cursing as some older students snuck around the halls.

“You know you can talk to me about anything,” Leta whispered as she fiddled with her necklace. The charm that hung on the end of it peeked from beneath her uniform robes as she twisted the chain, shining like a polished gem in the dim light. Newt knew she treated with just as much care, because it was her mother's.

”Of course I know that, Leta.” He sounded unconvincing even to himself.

“No, I mean — Newt, if you ever… ever do something, or — or maybe find something you shouldn’t have. You can tell me, no matter what it is. I won’t tell. And you know I don’t judge.

She couldn't have known about the book. Newt's insides were heavy with guilt and something else. He threaded his fingers with Leta’s, both sticky with honey, and gave her a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. One of the Jarvies sneezed in its sleep.

“Thank you.” He meant it. Perhaps one day, he would tell her what he saw, what it made him feel, but right then it didn’t feel like he could trust her with it. “But you don't have to worry about me.”

Leta pressed her lips to Newt’s cheek before rushing off to her own dorm. Newt stayed there, touching the spot where she had kissed him, before wiping it off with his wrist.

(Newt slept that night, and his dreams were plagued by hanged figures, the stench of burning flesh and screams that are drowned by cold water or the gurgling as rope tightened around necks, yet they didn't seem to still or quiet. There were figures darker than night, their white light for eyes too calculating, and their oleaginous, pulsating forms dance around the bodies, not with a life of its own but _something_ else, just out of Newt’s reach. When he stretched his arm out to touch them, someone cried in pain. The next morning, Newt skipped Potions, pointedly ignoring professor his professor's gaze, found the book and burned it. He thinks back on professor Dumbledore's tired gaze when he was asked about his sister, thinks back on what he's heard, and tells himself it’s for the best.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **why have those books at Hogwarts in the first place?**  
>  • Herbert Berry was the professor of Herbology sometime before 1955, when he retired. We can assume he was the professor who also taught around Newt’s time.  
> • For those of you who don’t remember, spattergroit, and I quote, is _“a highly-contagious wizarding disease caused by an infectious fungus”,_ which caused pustules and the inability to talk. Fun, right?  
>  • Useless, but fun fact: the usage of ‘v’ for ‘u’ or ‘w’ was found mostly in Dutch-language books, and ran out of use during the 17th century, so I picture the book is most likely is from that area. It’s a half-history book, half-condemnation of Muggles as the ultimate evil.
> 
> * * *
> 
> Me: *has stories to finish*  
> Also me: skidaddle skadic, time to write another fic
> 
> I’ve had a fucken Pinterest board for the possible adopted child, for months now, and plenty of fic ideas, but I was tentative on writing her origin story because I wasn’t sure how to introduce her. 
> 
> This fic in particular is slightly based on the prompt fill [**Wishes and Gifts**](https://fantasticbeasts-kinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/459.html?thread=340683#cmt340683), although I think it qualifies more as… a remix? Either way, go read the original fic, it’s great, I love it, it just has the perfect dark feel if you’re into that.


End file.
